Part 4: Now Go Write Yours
by Silvia Passiflora, Editor | Scriptaluna
April 5, 2026
Note: This series reflects my own journey and best practices as an independent artist. It is not legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified attorney.
This series is field notes, not a textbook. It reflects one artist's journey through terrain that is still being mapped.
I am not a lawyer. I am not a platform policy expert. I am a Southern Gothic Folk poet-songwriter who went looking for something one Saturday morning and kept following the thread until it became four Editor's Letters. Some of what I found, others have found before me and said differently. I am staying open to that.
What I do know is that I was in the trenches. I didn't know to ask for my stems, or work-for-hire agreements, before leaving a recording session. I didn't know what the deliverables were the first time I worked with a producer. I learned Nashville Numbers the way a newborn learns to walk — late, ungracefully, and in a room full of Grammy-winning musicians who were kind enough not to say anything. Everyone has a different path. Mine just happened to run straight through the infrastructure.
So take what's useful. Adapt what fits.
Where You Are Starting From
The next step looks different depending on where you are.
If you have no terms page and no copyright notice on your website, start tonight with this in your footer:
© [Year] [Your Name]. All rights reserved.
That single line is a declaration of ownership. It costs nothing and takes two minutes. Without it you have not even posted the sign.
If you have a terms page but no AI prohibition language, add a dedicated section now. State explicitly that your content may not be used to train, fine-tune, or develop any AI system, with or without attribution, commercial or otherwise. Name your specific content types. Add "including but not limited to" so the list does not become the ceiling. Update the date on your terms the moment you publish the new language.
If you already have full terms with explicit AI language, the work is not finished — it is ongoing. New scrapers emerge. Law evolves. Your terms should be reviewed periodically and your timestamp kept current.
The Moment You Publish It
The date on the sign matters as much as the sign itself.
The moment you update your terms, submit that page to Google Search Console — a free tool at search.google.com/search-console that allows website owners to communicate directly with Google about their content. Paste your terms page URL into the URL inspection tool and request indexing. If the process is unfamiliar, searching "how to request indexing in Google Search Console" will walk you through it in minutes.
That reindex request creates a timestamped record of when your updated language went live. If you ever need to demonstrate that your prohibition was in place before a specific scraping event occurred, that timestamp is your evidence.
The sign is only as strong as the date on it.
One More Thing
Model the language in Part 3. Understand what each clause is doing. Then write the version that belongs to your front door — with your name, your content types, your sites, your LLC if you have one. The goal is not to copy mine verbatim. The goal is to understand it well enough to make it yours.
And if you find something I missed, or a nuance I should consider, or a better way to say any of this — I genuinely want to know. This terrain is still being mapped, and nobody has the complete picture yet.
What This Series Has Been About
The gap between artists who are protected and artists who are not is almost never a talent gap or a work ethic gap. It is almost always an information gap. Not knowing the room had rules before you were already in it.
The robots.txt file was always there. The terms page was always an option. The Google Search Console timestamp was always available. The language existed. Someone just had to go looking and come back with what they found.
Here is mine.
Now go write yours.
This series continued. Each part stands alone, but the full picture builds across all four:
Part 1, Do You Know What's Crawling Through Your Website?
Part 2, How Hard Do You Make It For Someone Who Steals From You?
Part 3: Here Is Mine
Part 4: Now Go Write Yours